Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 83

However, just as all the buildings have not fallen and flowed back to their original mud, so the values which wanted them and saw that they were built have not all disappeared.

The values and talents which made the tile and the dome, the rug, the poem and the miniature, continue in certain social institutions which rise above the ordinary life of this city, as the great buildings rise above blank walls and dirty lanes.

Often, too, the social institutions are housed in these pavilions and palaces and bridges, for these great structures are not simply `` historical monuments '' ; ;

they are the places where Persians live.